The chart below, from Westpac's head of market strategy, Robert Rennie, shows the daily traded volume of
Chinese iron ore futures on the Dalian Commodities Exchange back
to when the market first came into existence in late 2013.

According to Rennie, the equivalent of 977 million tonnes were
traded on the Dalian exchange on Wednesday. Not only was it the
highest daily turnover on record, it exceeded the entire amount
of physical iron ore imported by China over the past year.

In the 12 months to February, China imported a total of 962.6
million tonnes of an iron ore, the largest year-on-year total on
record.

If the level of turnover recorded in Dalian futures on Wednesday
was to be replicated over the course of any one typical trading
year, it would equate to around 240 billion tonnes of ore.

That's a lot of ore!

The surge led Sean Callow, currency strategist at Westpac, to
muse earlier today whether iron ore futures are the next "new new
thing" for Shanghai cab drivers who dabbled in the stock market
beforehand.

Certainly the swings in iron ore futures have been wild of late,
suggesting that speculative forces may be building, as was case
in the stock market back in late 2014.

Whoever is responsible, be it taxi drivers or other investors,
let's hope that they're aware that iron ore futures are a
physically delivered contract, meaning when it expires those
investors who are holding will take physical delivery of the ore.

That could be an awkward situation to explain to your next door
neighbour.

Midway through Thursday's trading session the most actively
traded May 2016 contract in Dalian is currently up by 3.33%.

Whether that's a sign of strong underlying demand, or simply
speculation that the gains in the spot price earlier in the week
will continue in the days ahead, won't be truly known until daily
spot price data is released at 9.30pm AEDT tonight.